Social Networking and Online Collaboration in the Content Areas
How will you facilitate an authentic collaborative learning experience to promote deeper student engagement with content skills and concepts?
I will be guiding my students as they work on their problem in their groups. I will be assigning students to collaborative heterogeneous groups. From there we will be using wikis and discussion boards to collaboratively work together on this health unit. There will be posted guidelines and expectations for the students to follow. Each group will be identified by a letter. Because of the software we are limited to where we can go on the web. We will be using a wiki for the unit. The students will respond to questions on the discussion part of the wiki. I will also use a blog for the students to ask questions of one another so that the wiki doesn’t get bogged down with a lot of questions. As Palloff & Pratt (2007 p.157) states, “Collaborative effort helps learners achieve a deeper level of knowledge generation while moving from independence to interdependence, thus strengthening the foundation of the online learning community. I will be encouraging the students to work together on the health unit. I will be monitoring all online and in class work. The week before the unit the students will create an eating log recording what they ate daily. All students in the collaborative group will have a job that they are responsible for within their group. I will have 4 groups because I have 4 computers that they can work on. Palloff & Pratt (2005, p. 19) states that, “collaboration takes planning and coordination on the part of the instructor to carry out collaborative activity successfully in an online class.”
As members of collaborative groups, how will you support students’ efforts to identify solutions to the problem you are using as the framework for your PBL instructional unit?
I will be a facilitator and will support my students when problems arise with technology and any questions that they will have. The unit will be simple enough for the students to follow. The students will have a unit framework checklist that they will follow. Because this will be new for my students I will need to guide them along the way. The wiki will have set goals and expectations and steps to follow. We as a whole group will complete a Webquests so the students get an idea of what they will be doing in our health unit. I will be guiding the students as they answer questions, search the internet, have technology problems and anything else that might come up ensuring success for all the group members and stakeholders. I will help students negotiate amongst themselves, provide feedback to the groups, and evaluate the students work as the project progresses and when the project is completed. This will ensure that all groups are on task and that they understand their assignment.
What criteria will you use to assign learners to collaborative groups, including a rationale? What will be the size of the collaborative groups you will include in your unit?
The students will know what their jobs are within the group. They will know what expectations and requirements they will need to meet. Students will work in 4 groups of 5 as I only have 4 computers in the classroom and our computer labs stay busy with the 3rd through 5th grades. I will be using heterogeneous groups so that every group has the same number of high, average and low students and the groups are as fair as possible. The students will all have jobs or roles within their group and things that they will be responsible like: recorder, researcher, artist, and reporter. The students will understand that they will “swim or sink together”. I will be encouraging my students to find other websites that we can incorporate on our health wiki. Students will be using a variety of graphic organizers to compare their eating habits with others in their group using Venn diagrams. As a whole group we will be creating a KWHL (What do we know?, what do we want to find out?, How can we find out what we want to learn, what did we learn?) These will be placed on the wiki and then we will update as we go along.
Which digital tools and websites are you considering for collaboration in your unit?
How will you assess participation of the students in their collaborative groups?
Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer (2010, p. 172) states, “Problem based learning can also utilize performance based assessments, as a well defined problem can easily require students to demonstrate new knowledge and skills through performance with the only limitations being the appropriate fit to the content being explored.” I will be using rubrics to assess the daily participation. The students will have rubrics to evaluate each individual group member’s participation in the group project. The students will be creating a healthy kid book which will be evaluated by a rubric. References
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning..
Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- How will you facilitate an authentic collaborative learning experience to promote deeper student engagement with content skills and concepts?
I will be guiding my students as they work on their problem in their groups. I will be assigning students to collaborative heterogeneous groups. From there we will be using wikis and discussion boards to collaboratively work together on this health unit. There will be posted guidelines and expectations for the students to follow. Each group will be identified by a letter. Because of the software we are limited to where we can go on the web. We will be using a wiki for the unit. The students will respond to questions on the discussion part of the wiki. I will also use a blog for the students to ask questions of one another so that the wiki doesn’t get bogged down with a lot of questions. As Palloff & Pratt (2007 p.157) states, “Collaborative effort helps learners achieve a deeper level of knowledge generation while moving from independence to interdependence, thus strengthening the foundation of the online learning community. I will be encouraging the students to work together on the health unit. I will be monitoring all online and in class work. The week before the unit the students will create an eating log recording what they ate daily. All students in the collaborative group will have a job that they are responsible for within their group. I will have 4 groups because I have 4 computers that they can work on. Palloff & Pratt (2005, p. 19) states that, “collaboration takes planning and coordination on the part of the instructor to carry out collaborative activity successfully in an online class.”- As members of collaborative groups, how will you support students’ efforts to identify solutions to the problem you are using as the framework for your PBL instructional unit?
I will be a facilitator and will support my students when problems arise with technology and any questions that they will have. The unit will be simple enough for the students to follow. The students will have a unit framework checklist that they will follow. Because this will be new for my students I will need to guide them along the way. The wiki will have set goals and expectations and steps to follow. We as a whole group will complete a Webquests so the students get an idea of what they will be doing in our health unit. I will be guiding the students as they answer questions, search the internet, have technology problems and anything else that might come up ensuring success for all the group members and stakeholders. I will help students negotiate amongst themselves, provide feedback to the groups, and evaluate the students work as the project progresses and when the project is completed. This will ensure that all groups are on task and that they understand their assignment.- What criteria will you use to assign learners to collaborative groups, including a rationale? What will be the size of the collaborative groups you will include in your unit?
The students will know what their jobs are within the group. They will know what expectations and requirements they will need to meet. Students will work in 4 groups of 5 as I only have 4 computers in the classroom and our computer labs stay busy with the 3rd through 5th grades. I will be using heterogeneous groups so that every group has the same number of high, average and low students and the groups are as fair as possible. The students will all have jobs or roles within their group and things that they will be responsible like: recorder, researcher, artist, and reporter. The students will understand that they will “swim or sink together”. I will be encouraging my students to find other websites that we can incorporate on our health wiki.Students will be using a variety of graphic organizers to compare their eating habits with others in their group using Venn diagrams. As a whole group we will be creating a KWHL (What do we know?, what do we want to find out?, How can we find out what we want to learn, what did we learn?) These will be placed on the wiki and then we will update as we go along.
- Which digital tools and websites are you considering for collaboration in your unit?
We will be using the smartboard, overhead projector, document camera, microphone, digital camera, IPhone, wiki, Webspiration, Graphic.org and blog. I am thinking of using Skype also but not sure that the older computers will take the microphones.Dental website http://www.cumbavac.org/Dental_Health.htm
Milk Matters http://www.nichd.nih.gov/milk/teachers/upload/mm_smartsnack_cookbook.pdf
Team exercising http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwche/webquest3e.htm
Build Blocks for healthy children http://www.bblocks.samhsa.gov/Children/default.aspx
Internet Projects http://www.gsn.org/gsh/pr/index.cfm?CFID=2764687&CFTOKEN=57259319
Kids EPA http://www.epa.gov/kids/
Leafy Greens http://www.leafy-greens.org/default.htm
Resources http://www.cln.org/subjects/nutrition_cur.html
Bicycle http://www.bhsi.org/
- How will you assess participation of the students in their collaborative groups?
Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer (2010, p. 172) states, “Problem based learning can also utilize performance based assessments, as a well defined problem can easily require students to demonstrate new knowledge and skills through performance with the only limitations being the appropriate fit to the content being explored.” I will be using rubrics to assess the daily participation. The students will have rubrics to evaluate each individual group member’s participation in the group project. The students will be creating a healthy kid book which will be evaluated by a rubric.References
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning..
Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.